And streaming requires owning a GTX 660 or higher, which rules out any AMD people and some Nvidia GPU owners as well. It just seems too much like a hobby product, especially at a price of $349. Even the Vita struggles at $249, and that thing has far more original titles to play (plus PSOne games)

The streaming is really the only thing I do care about as I don't care about Android games. There's significant savings to be had in having one beast rig that can game on any TV in the house over gigabit or WiFi. Right now I've got HTPC/gaming machines on every display in the house, which cost a lot more than the Shield. However, each computer can play at the same time, making multiplayer a simple task, something that Shield doesn't really help with. Also, it doesn't help with games that use M+K, unless it has a USB port for that... On the flip side, we don't play many multiplayer games. It's definitely a niche product, but I can see the draw...Reply

It's too much of a 'tweener to be mainstream. I just wanted to tease you on making a whole comment about your use of niche products and then downplaying the Shield's niche qualities. I use an HTPC myself.Reply

Android is great simply because there are TONs of devices running it. So a lot of effort will be put on creating games for Android for a lot of years to come. The platform does not matter, it's the game availability that matters.

Especially now that even the cheapest Android phones have 1ghz processors the quality of games will increase - not that the cheapest phones will be gaming consoles, but because of this the middle tier of phones will be a LOT better than it was a year ago.

not to mention emulators compatibility with android, you can play ALL classic games on this thing.

having owned an ill fated Xperia Play I can't wait to get a Shield. I gave up on the Play because it was deliberately killed by Sony (no ICS upgrade), but it ran all the games I wanted at the time and the gamepad makes a HUGE improvement during games.

I would never buy a closed-platform portable console - 3ds or vita. but will definetivaly buy this open-platform one.Reply

As long as they get some solid local multiplayer support like Portal 2, L4D2 (currently requires a hack to do splitscreen) and maybe a few hotseat (hot potato?) party games, I'll probably buy one.Reply

Don't care about Shield so much. Will nVidia enable those streaming functions to be used by other devices other than Shield? I'm imagining having my Ultrabook streaming from my gaming PC, letting me roam the house and still be gaming.

I could concentrate all my gaming budget on one gaming PC and let HTPC's be small and stream the games from the bigger gaming box. I could be using my Ultrabook to sneak attack fools in Assassin's Creed 3 while I'm taking a dump. I could be at the dinner table eating my pasta while I'm becoming a survivor in Tomb Raider.

Suddenly, instead of building a gaming HTPC that has to have decent hardware to game, I can put tri-SLI in my "gaming server" and keep everything silent, cool, and small with the HTPC's. Each one having a controller and a keyboard/mouse to game wirelessly from a bed, couch, whatever.

This is the dream, nVidia. Give us the dream. Shield is really rather unnecessary for most of us who already have more than one PC.Reply

Wait so you can run full triple aaa games off your nvidia gpu (i have a gtx titan) and have your main rig gpu process everything but play it streaming in real time over wireless n network on the handheld shield and this works for every game? Does the gtx titan support this feature? I know someone said gt 650 and up but the titan has gk110 chip instead of gk104. Does titan's chip also support this streaming.

That streaming ability is freakin really cool if its what I understand it to be. Can you stream to the shield and output the shields display to a tv screen instead of the shields screen. That would be amazing. Gaming on any screen in your house with just 1 pc.Reply

This will be such a flop. On top of that it looks awful with these thick bezels on the screen. For $349? Who will pay that to play Angry Birds or scroll through 400,000 rubbish games created by 12 year olds?Reply

To those bugged about streaming feature. This is a NVIDIA experience feature, they are using a video encoder that is directly built into the geforce lineup (starting with gtx650 and up). If they did not use this encoder chip then the streaming experience would be lack-luster and laggy like many other remote play apps. Gamers want responsive and instant feedback, which is why they developed this tech. The SHIELD is a NVIDIA device anyway, so naturally things work better/give more features if you are using hardware that is all part of the same EcoSystem. Once you try it first hand you wont believe how responsive it is and how neat it is to kick back on your bed and hit up a few more hours of Skyrim before sleep ;)Reply